Abraham Nordheimer

Nordheimer, Abraham

Abraham Nordheimer. Music dealer, publisher, teacher, b Memmelsdorf, Bavaria, 24 Feb 1816, d Hamburg 18 Jan 1862 while on a visit to Germany. With his younger brother Samuel he followed his older brother Isaac, an Oriental scholar, to New York in 1839.

Several 20th-century accounts relate that a Canadian officer on a visit to New York induced Abraham to move to Kingston, Canada West (Ontario), as music teacher to the family of Sir Charles Bagot, governor general of British North America 1841-3. There is proof only that Nordheimer was a newcomer in Kingston in July 1842, when he advertised as a piano, voice, and violin teacher. Soon afterwards he opened a music store. In 1844 tickets for the Kingston Harmonic Society could be obtained at his store - a shred of evidence for another claim that he had founded a musical society.

In the spring of 1844 Abraham moved to Toronto and, with Samuel, opened the A. & S. Nordheimer music store and publishing firm. Abraham was on the committee of the Toronto Philharmonic Society in the late 1840s and played second violin in its orchestra. A successful businessman, he also was prominent in musical circles and active in the Toronto Hebrew Congregation. As the senior partner in A. & S. Nordheimer, he deserves the chief credit for having established Canada's pioneer music specialty house.

See also Albert Nordheimer (his son).